If there was ever any doubt, the recent news of the clergy who’ve been dubbed “Pennsylvania’s Predator Priests” laid it to rest. The atrocities perpetrated by the Roman Catholic priests are enough to make Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein look like, well, a saint. Sin is rampant in the church. But was there ever any doubt? No.

The question is, what do we do with this information? Sin is rampant in the church. Heinous sins were committed that have caused real and deep hurt. Lives have been torn to shreds. It’s enough to drive a person away from the sanctuary, away from anything that resembles the religion of Rome, away from Christianity. What now?

How about truth? Let’s start with truth. Real, absolute truth. The kind Jesus says will set you free (John 8:32). The kind that not only exposes sin, but also deals with it, reins it in, protects against it and conquers it. Sin is rampant in the church. There is no doubt about it. It always has been. That’s the truth. When it’s covered up, as history has shown and as we’re witnessing yet again, it only multiplies. Sin begets sin. Truth, on the other hand, breeds healing and nurtures life. The truth is a light that destroys the darkness of sin and fosters love.

How many people will abandon their faith in Christ because of the sins that were carried out and covered up by clergymen? Even one is too many. The scandal is not just in the gross nature of the sins, but that they were committed by men bearing the name of Jesus. To say that trust was broken seems like an understatement, but it was. From the parish all the way to the pope, so it would seem. Now, we know the truth. And as Jesus says, it’s the truth that sets us free. Not free from His church, but free from the wickedness of sin, free from the shackles of evil. The truth should have been spoken years ago. The truth needs to be spoken now.

“If we say we have fellowship with (God) while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:6-7). The priests lied. They walked in darkness and didn’t practice truth.

That is not the way of Christ. That the church is a place void of sin is a lie. We all know the truth. Sin is rampant in the church. It always has been, which is why we’ve always had a way of dealing with it. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10). No one, not a Roman Catholic priest or a Protestant pew sitter, can walk in darkness and say he has fellowship with God. Christians cannot continue in their sins and remain in Christ.

The sins of a multitude of priests are on our minds, but for truth to set us free we must remember that we too are sinners. Covering up our own transgressions will do us no good. Such action will only create in us the same vile culture of darkness and lies that the grand jury uncovered in Pennsylvania. The truth needs to be spoken.

We know sin is rampant in the church. But, so is truth. When we speak the truth, we silence the lies and uncover our sins. We’re not driven away from Christianity, but freed from the evil that once laid claim to our sanctuaries. Speak the truth, that the light of Christ might shine and His love and life would be known.

The Rev. Tyrel Bramwell is the pastor of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Ferndale.